


I've got drama

by scepticallyopenminded



Series: 30 Day Lyrics Challenge - 2017 [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Implications of Nogitsune, M/M, Nightmares, implications of PTSD, mentions of possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 13:59:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12936759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scepticallyopenminded/pseuds/scepticallyopenminded
Summary: “C’mon. Tell me what’s wrong.”Stiles bites his lip, hesitates, and sighs again.“You ever just feel like you’re at the edge of the world?”





	I've got drama

**Author's Note:**

> from David Bowie's Lazarus:
> 
> "I've got drama/Can't be stolen"

****

Stiles is sitting at Derek’s kitchen island, sipping tea out of one of his mugs, when Derek gets back to his apartment after going out for groceries. It’s a near every-other-day task, what with Isaac and Cora regularly (read: at least twice a day) breaking in to eat his food, and the entire pack being made of ‘wolves (plus Stiles, who could nearly put Scott to shame for how much he ate) who frequented his place.

Derek, of course, doesn’t so much as act surprised at the sight of one of his pack in his apartment without him; at least three of them had keys he’d given them, and the other’s all had copies that he _hadn’t_ given them. It was better than them scaling the building and breaking in through the windows, at least. He just sets the grocery bags on the counter and raises one eyebrow. Stiles smiles, serenely at least if a bit sadly, and pushes another still-steaming mug toward Derek.

“Peppermint. I know you love it.”

Derek accepts the mug, bringing it to his face and breathing in, scent calming, before he took a drink. Stiles watches him the entire time, closely enough that Derek gets a bit suspicious about what Stiles may have put in it; they were on better grounds, certainly, but Stiles liked to prank people. Nothing that ever hurt anybody, or even humiliated anyone, but the whole pack was still wary of everything that Stiles gave them.

But the expression hiding beneath Stiles’ carefully constructed smooth one made him think that maybe this wasn’t some big prank. No, something was bothering Stiles.

“So wanna tell me why you’re here?” Derek asks, voice gentle as he starts to put away the groceries. He knows Stiles, and knows that there are two options with him; push him as softly as you can until he wants to talk about it, or he’ll bottle it all up until he breaks down with a thunderous crash. Derek always tries for the former, because with enough pressing, Stiles would open up. You just have to wait it out, sometimes for days.

But this time, Stiles seems to let it out right away. He sighs deeply, and Derek turns around from putting coffee in the cupboard to see him looking down into his half-finished drink, playing with the string from the teabag.

“I just…wanted to see you before the pack meeting tonight.”

And while that would normally seem a good enough reason to Derek – they’re pretty close these days, and always on the edge of something more, so it’s not highly unusual for them to hang out by themselves. But Derek knows it’s something more this time; Stiles is unusually reserved, quiet. It’s almost haunting, to have Stiles around and not constantly talking.

“Uh huh,” Derek replies in his most disbelieving voice, and the way Stiles looks at him when he does that would be hilarious under any other circumstances – a combination of a perfect glare that Lydia and Cora have taught him over the years and the same sarcastic expression he’s always had. Under it all, Stiles still looks exhausted, yet also somewhat fond. Like maybe he’s grateful that Derek knows him well enough to hear an excuse when he tells it.

“Yeah,” Stiles admits, picking at his fingernail and Derek can hear his heartbeat, can smell the barest scent of nerves coming off him, “I didn’t even really try on that one, did I?”

He looks back up at Derek with a smile on his face, but it’s a somber one. Derek shakes his head, eyebrows pressed together in worry.

“C’mon. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Stiles bites his lip, hesitates, and sighs again.

“You ever just feel like you’re at the edge of the world?”

It’s a superfluous way of describing the feeling, perhaps there were other, less poetic, more to the point words Stiles could have used, but Derek _does_ know that feeling. It’s less and less these days, but a feeling he got often when he was younger, after his family, after Laura.

“Anything in particular happen?” is Derek’s next question, putting food in the refrigerator, because Stiles tends to be more open when the person he’s talking to isn’t completely focused on _him_.

“No,” Stiles says, “No, just. I guess it’s just a bad day.”

There’s a pause, the only sound Derek setting milk in the fridge door, emptying a bag of apples into the fruit drawer, before Stiles speaks again. It’s quieter than before, barely above a whisper.

“I had a nightmare last night.”

That’s enough to get Derek to look at him again, eyebrows drawn tighter than even before, folding his reusable bags and shutting the fridge behind him.

It wouldn’t have been unusual two years ago for any of the pack to come to him and say they had a nightmare. But things have settled dramatically since the pack finished college and settled down in Beacon Hills again. The Nemeton is seemingly dormant for now, and supernatural encounters of any kind, besides those of bad nature, are few and far between.

Most of their nightmares have slowly faded away with the newfound peace, and Stiles himself hasn’t had one in near seven months.

It hurts Derek to hear this again, but probably not moreso than it’s hurting Stiles. He seems distant, drawn into himself, and now that Derek is really looking, nervous and agitated. And it’s not hard to guess exactly what the nightmare was about, now that Derek knows that’s what up, because Stiles always does this exact thing when he has nightmares about possession. About hurting people against his will, about not being in control of his body.

“You wanna talk about it?” Derek asks, sitting down opposite Stiles and picking up his mug again. Stiles shakes his head, looking out the window that sits over the kitchen sink.

“No. I just wanna be here, with you, for a little while.”

Derek nods, takes the empty mug from Stiles and throws away the old teabag, going to the cupboard to grab a new one and sets the kettle on the range again, turning on one burner.

It’s hard on Derek, as the alpha and someone who’s grown to love his pack and wants to take care of them in all the ways he can, that he can’t protect them always. He can’t save them from their own minds, can’t stop their nightmares from attacking them and it’s hard to stand by and watch it happen.

So he does what he can. Makes another cup of tea for Stiles, suggests they watch that cop procedural show he really likes, and lets Stiles lean on him as they sit on the couch.

Maybe, eventually, everything will be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> find me at [asocialfoxpaw](https://asocialfoxpaw.tumblr.com)


End file.
